| gcls_courant_010 476 THE COURANT; A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
my ears. I went, and found that he loved truth better
than his own opinion or bias, and my suggestion that so
comprehensive a University as that of Berlin, our com-
mon native city, ought to be honored with having the
first chair of Pœnology, for which it was high time to
carve out a distinct branch, treating of the convict in all
his phases after the act of conviction, was seized upon at
once by his liberal mind. He soon carried the minister
of justice along with him, and the offer to which I have
alluded was the consequence.
On the other hand, a friend, whose name is, perhaps,
more interwoven with the history of our canal than that
of any other citizen, excpet Clinton, informs me that he
ha the pleasure of sitting by the side of Humboldt at
a royal dinner at Charlottenburg. During the whole
timt hey were engaged in conversing, almost exclusive-
ly, on our great canal, and that greater one which ought
to unite in everlasting wedlock the sturdy Atlantic an
the teeming Pacific, having now yearned for one another
for centuries. Humboldt spoke with a knowledge of
details and a sagacious discernment, which was surpris-
ing to my friend, well versed in all the details of these
topics.
Although it has been stated by high authority that
the works of Humboldt show to every one who can
"read between the lines," an endeavor to present Na-
ture in her totality, unconnected with man, I cannot
otherwise than state here that on the contrary, it has ever
appeared to me that this great man, studying Nature in
her details, and becoming what Bacon calls her interpre-
ting priest, he elevates himself to those heights whence
he can take a comprehensive view of her in connection
with man and the movements of society, with language,
economy, and exchange, institutions and architecture,
which is to man almost like the nidifying instinct to the
bird. Humboldt's tendency in this respect seems to me,
in its sphere, not wholly dissimilar to the view which his
friend Ritter takes of geography in connection with his-
tory.
Humboldt, it would seem, could hardly be expected
to stand in a different relation to the natural sciences.--
He was, with all his erudition and the grandeur of his
knowledge, eminently a social man. I have found a
passage in a paper, written by a diplomatist and highly
cultivated writer, Varnhagen von Ense,* which I feel
sure will be listened to with interest. Von Ense de-
scribes his sojourn in Paris in the year 1810, and says:
"In the salons of Metternich (at that time Austrian
Embassador near the Court of St. Cloud) I saw Hum-
boldt only as a brilliant and admired meteor, so much so
that I hardly found time to present myself to him and
whisper into his ear a few of those names which gave
me a right to personal acquaintance with him. Rarely
has a man enjoyed in such a degree the esteem of all,
the admiration of the most opposite parties, and the zeal
of all in power to serve him. Napoleon oes not love
him; he knows Humbolt as a shrewd thinker,
whose way of thinking and whose opinion cannot be bent;
but the Emperor and his Court, and the high authorities
in the State have never denied the impression which
they received by the presence of this bold traveler, by
the power of his knowledge, and the light which seems
to stream from it in every direction. The learned of all
nations are proud of their high associate; all the Ger-
mans of their countryman, and all the Liberals of their
fellow." * * * "It has rarely been vouchsafed,"
continues Von Ense, "to a man in such a degree as to
Humbolt, to stand forth in indiviual independence, and
always equal to himself, and at one and the same time
in scientific activity and in the widest social and inter-
national intercourse, in the solitude of minute inquiry,
and in the almost confusing brilliancy of the society of
the day; but I know of no one who, with all this, has
endeavored throughout his whole life to promote the pro-
gress and welfare of our race so steadily, uniformly, and
with such ample success."
So far Von Ense. This picture is doubtless true, but
we ought not to recall it to our memory without remem-
bering at the same time one of his most prominent char-
acteristics--his simplicity and amenity, so inherent in
him that they were never dimned, so far as I know, by
the lustre of his talents or the energy of his thought.
The most perfect image of social refinement, which I
have to this day in my mind, is an early evening party
at the villa of William von Humboldt, near the Lake of
Tegel. Nature has not done much for that spot, but re-
fined simplicity, courtesy and taste, easy interchange of
thought and experience, gemmed with sparkling con-
verse, men of name and women of attractive elegance and
high acquirements, young and old, travelers, courtiers,
artists, soldiers and students, music, works of art, green
lawns, shrubbery and winding paths along smooth water
or waving fields, are the components of that scene, in the
midst of which the two illustrious Humboldts moved an
delighted others as much as they seemed to be gratified,
-----------
* Published in Raumer's Historical Annual, for 1845.
giving and receiving, as all the others did, never condes-
cending, never indicating a consciousness that they en-
couraged the timid, but showing how gladly they received
additional knowledge from every one.
Humboldt retained his freshness of min and soul to
his latest years. This was one of his greatest charms.
No one, I believe, has ever heard the old man's complaint
of changing times, from his lips. He never sighed for
the "good old times," although he had lived through
changes in institutions and opinions, of systems and lan-
guage, of men, manners, and even of dress, as no other
prominent man. He received the living traditions of the
great circumnavigator, Cook, through Forster, Cook's
companion, and lived to gather facts for his Cosmos from
the latest reports of the geological surveys of our States;
he lived when Voltaire died, and must have grown up
with many French ideas of his school floating around
him, for Humboldt was a nobleman whose family lived
within the atmosphere of the Berlin court; and he lived
to witness the great revolution in literature as well in
Germany as in France and England; he lived when
Rousseau died (the same year when Voltaire deceased,)
and must have remembered, from personal observation,
that homage which even monarchs paid (at a distance,
it is true,) to the Contrât Social, and he outlived by
some weeks de Tocqueville. He lived through the pe-
riod of the American Revolution; was a contemporary
of Washington and Adams, and a friend of Jefferson.--
He lived through the French Revolution and the age of
the classic orators of Britain. He lived through the
Napoleon era and the resuscitation of Prussia and of all
Germany. He studied under Werner, with whom min-
eralogy begins, and knew Houy. He knew Laplace,
survived Arago and Gauss, and worked with Enke. He
lived with Kant, and knew Schelling and Hegel. He
knew Goethe and read Heine. He read Gibbon's De-
cline as a work of a living author, and perused Niebuhr,
and later still Prescott and Ranke. He grew up in the
Prussian monarchy according to the type of Frederick
the Great, and with the fresh reminiscences of the seven
year's war, and left it changed in army, school, govern-
ment--in everything. He saw the beginning of the In-
stitute of France, and lived to be considered by the as-
sociates as one of the most brilliant ornaments at its most
brilliant period. He lived through the periods which
distinctly mark the science of chemistry, from Lavoisier
to the Roses and Liebig. He lived through the whole
period of growing popular sentiments and habits. He
wore the lace and ruffle of the last century, and the more
practical dress of our times. Yet, no one, I repeat, ever
heard him regretfully long for what had passed. I have
heard him speak with warmth of noble things and men
that he had known, but never with gloomy despair of the
present or the future.
There are men here around me of honored names in
those sciences which Humboldt cultivated more especial-
ly as his own. I hope they will indicate to us how he
infused a new spirit into them--how he immeasurably
extended them--how he added discoveries and original
conceptions; but I, though allowed to worship these
sciences in the peristyle only, and not as a consecrated
priest, crave permission to say a few words even on this
topic.
Some fifteen years ago Humboldt presided over the
annual meeting of Naturalists, then held at Berlin. In
his opening speech he chiefly discoursed on the merits
of Linnæus. He knew of Linnæus as Herodotus knew
of Salamis and Thermopylæ; for the life of the great
Swede over-lapped by some ten years that of Humboldt,
and all he there said of Linné seems to me to apply to
himself with far greater force and on an enlarged scale.
In that speech, too, I remember, he quoted his friend
Schiller. Humboldt was, in a marked manner, of a poetic
temperament. I do not believe that without it he would
have been able to receive those living impressions of na-
ture, and to combine what was singly received in those
vivid descriptions, and in language so true and transpa-
rent that they surprise the visitor of the scenes as, gene-
ration after generation, they are examined. He had
that constructive imagination--I do not speak now of
inventive fancy--without which no man can be great in
any branch, whether it belong to nature or to history, to
statesmanship or Watt's ingenuity.
But yesterday an officer of our navy, whose profession
has made him well acquainted with South America, by
sea and land, and with the Andes--one of the Monu-
ments of our Illustrious Man--told me that he knew of
no descriptions, or rather characteristics so true to living
reality as Humboldt's Views of Nature, which he had
perused and enjoyed on the spot.
The power of collocation and shrewdness of connec-
tion, the knowledge of detail, and the absence of a desire
to perceive things according to a system, the thirst for
the knowledge of the life of Nature, and the constant
wish to make all of us share in the treasures of his know-
ledge--his lucid style, which may establish his Cosmos
as a German classic--these seem to me to characterize
Humboldt in his Studies of Nature, besides all that
which he has done as a professional naturalist.
Humboldt's name and life may be termed with strict
propriety of language, international. He read and spoke
English and Italian; he spoke and wrote Spanish with
ease and correctness, and French almost as well as Ger-
man; he lived for entire periods of many years in Paris,
and counted many French among his best friends, yet
not at the expense of patriotism. In that very speech
at Berlin, which has been mentioned, he dwells with
pleasure on the penetrating effect which the German
mind has excersised on all the physical sciences, no less
than in the mental branches.
Humboldt was a dweller in kingly palaces--a courtier
if you choose, and a son of a courtier, without a taint of
servile flattery or submission. He was rather the
honored guest of royalty. He loved liberty, and consid-
ered it a necessary element of our civilization. He was
a sincere friend, of substantial, institutional freedom.00
His mind often traveled to this country, and that he
loved America (sometimes with sadness,) is sufficiently
shown, were it not otherwise well known, by the singular
love which the Americans bore him. To me that little
piece of news was inexpressibly touching, which simply
informed us that our Minister in Berlin, with the Amer-
icans now present at that city--a cluster of mourners
from afar--formed part of his funeral procession--the
only foreign nation thus represented.
In his simplicity and genial warmth he did what many
a bold man would have hesitated to do. I was present,
as a young and distant listener, when at Rome, immedi-
ately after the Congress of Verona, the King of Prussia,
Humboldt and Niebuhr conversed on the affairs of the
day, and when the last mentioned spoke in no flattering
terms of the political views and antecedents of Arago,
who, it is well known, was a very advanced Republican
of the Gallican school, and uncompromising French
Democrat. Frederick William III simply abhorred Re-
publicanism, yet when Niebuhr had finished, Humboldt
said, with a sweetness which I vividly remember: "Still
this monster is the dearest friend I have in France."
Humboldt had all his brother's views of the necessity
of the highest University education, and of the widest
possible popular education, and he gave impulse to many
a scientific, historical or ethnological expedition, fitted
out even by foreign Governments, for he was considered
the counselor of all.
But I cannot dwell here any longer on his versatility
and manifold aptitude. It is proved by the literature
of almost every branch. If we read Barth on Central
Africa, we find Humboldt; if we read Say's Political
Economy, we find his name; if we study the History of
the Nineteenth Century, we find his name in the diplo-
macy of Prussia and France; if we read general litera-
ture, we find his name in connection with Schiller and
Madame de Staël; if we look at modern maps, we find
his isothermal lines; if we consult Grim's Dictionary of
the German language, we find Humboldt as authority.
That period has arrived to which Crœsus alluded in
the memorable exclamation, "Oh, Solon, Solon, Solon!"
and we are now allowed to say Humboldt was one of the
most gifted, most fortunate and most favored mortals--
favored even with comeliness, with a brow so exquisitely
chiselled that, irrespective of its being the symbol of
lofty thought, is pleasant to look upon in his busts, as a
mere beautiful thing--favored even in his name, so easily
uttered by all nations which were destined to pronounce
it.
When we pray not only for the kindly fruits of the
earth, but also, as we ought to do, for the kindly fruits
of the mind, let us always gratefully remember that He
who gives all blessed things, has given to our age and to
all posterity such a man as Humboldt.
Dr. Lieber resumed his seat amid great applause.
-----------------------------------------
TOMB OF THE CÆSARS.--A correspondent of the Bal-
timore American, writing from Rome, communicates the
following discovery:
"Immediately beyond the tomb of the Scipios, we en-
tered the deep vault recently discovered, containing the
urns and ashes of persons attached to the family of the
Cæsars. The largest one contains 612 stone urns, and
the smaller one 512, each filled with ashes and charred
bones. The walls are of stone, with pigeon-holes in
which the urns are set, and over each is an inscription
on white marble set in the stone. The chambers are
about thirty feet deep, with stone steps and an iron ban-
ister to descend them, all as perfect as when last used,
2,000 years ago.
-----------------------------------------
To preserve a friend, honor him when present, praise
him when absent, and assist him cordially in time of
need.
-----------------------------------------
Some descendant of Solomon has wisely remarked,
that those who go to law for damages are sure to get
them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | gcls_courant_010 476 THE COURANT; A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
my ears. I went, and found that he loved truth better
than his own opinion or bias, and my suggestion that so
comprehensive a University as that of Berlin, our com-
mon native city, ought to be honored with having the
first chair of Pœnology, for which it was high time to
carve out a distinct branch, treating of the convict in all
his phases after the act of conviction, was seized upon at
once by his liberal mind. He soon carried the minister
of justice along with him, and the offer to which I have
alluded was the consequence.
On the other hand, a friend, whose name is, perhaps,
more interwoven with the history of our canal than that
of any other citizen, excpet Clinton, informs me that he
ha the pleasure of sitting by the side of Humboldt at
a royal dinner at Charlottenburg. During the whole
timt hey were engaged in conversing, almost exclusive-
ly, on our great canal, and that greater one which ought
to unite in everlasting wedlock the sturdy Atlantic an
the teeming Pacific, having now yearned for one another
for centuries. Humboldt spoke with a knowledge of
details and a sagacious discernment, which was surpris-
ing to my friend, well versed in all the details of these
topics.
Although it has been stated by high authority that
the works of Humboldt show to every one who can
"read between the lines," an endeavor to present Na-
ture in her totality, unconnected with man, I cannot
otherwise than state here that on the contrary, it has ever
appeared to me that this great man, studying Nature in
her details, and becoming what Bacon calls her interpre-
ting priest, he elevates himself to those heights whence
he can take a comprehensive view of her in connection
with man and the movements of society, with language,
economy, and exchange, institutions and architecture,
which is to man almost like the nidifying instinct to the
bird. Humboldt's tendency in this respect seems to me,
in its sphere, not wholly dissimilar to the view which his
friend Ritter takes of geography in connection with his-
tory.
Humboldt, it would seem, could hardly be expected
to stand in a different relation to the natural sciences.--
He was, with all his erudition and the grandeur of his
knowledge, eminently a social man. I have found a
passage in a paper, written by a diplomatist and highly
cultivated writer, Varnhagen von Ense,* which I feel
sure will be listened to with interest. Von Ense de-
scribes his sojourn in Paris in the year 1810, and says:
"In the salons of Metternich (at that time Austrian
Embassador near the Court of St. Cloud) I saw Hum-
boldt only as a brilliant and admired meteor, so much so
that I hardly found time to present myself to him and
whisper into his ear a few of those names which gave
me a right to personal acquaintance with him. Rarely
has a man enjoyed in such a degree the esteem of all,
the admiration of the most opposite parties, and the zeal
of all in power to serve him. Napoleon oes not love
him; he knows Humbolt as a shrewd thinker,
whose way of thinking and whose opinion cannot be bent;
but the Emperor and his Court, and the high authorities
in the State have never denied the impression which
they received by the presence of this bold traveler, by
the power of his knowledge, and the light which seems
to stream from it in every direction. The learned of all
nations are proud of their high associate; all the Ger-
mans of their countryman, and all the Liberals of their
fellow." * * * "It has rarely been vouchsafed,"
continues Von Ense, "to a man in such a degree as to
Humbolt, to stand forth in indiviual independence, and
always equal to himself, and at one and the same time
in scientific activity and in the widest social and inter-
national intercourse, in the solitude of minute inquiry,
and in the almost confusing brilliancy of the society of
the day; but I know of no one who, with all this, has
endeavored throughout his whole life to promote the pro-
gress and welfare of our race so steadily, uniformly, and
with such ample success."
So far Von Ense. This picture is doubtless true, but
we ought not to recall it to our memory without remem-
bering at the same time one of his most prominent char-
acteristics--his simplicity and amenity, so inherent in
him that they were never dimned, so far as I know, by
the lustre of his talents or the energy of his thought.
The most perfect image of social refinement, which I
have to this day in my mind, is an early evening party
at the villa of William von Humboldt, near the Lake of
Tegel. Nature has not done much for that spot, but re-
fined simplicity, courtesy and taste, easy interchange of
thought and experience, gemmed with sparkling con-
verse, men of name and women of attractive elegance and
high acquirements, young and old, travelers, courtiers,
artists, soldiers and students, music, works of art, green
lawns, shrubbery and winding paths along smooth water
or waving fields, are the components of that scene, in the
midst of which the two illustrious Humboldts moved an
delighted others as much as they seemed to be gratified,
-----------
* Published in Raumer's Historical Annual, for 1845.
giving and receiving, as all the others did, never condes-
cending, never indicating a consciousness that they en-
couraged the timid, but showing how gladly they received
additional knowledge from every one.
Humboldt retained his freshness of min and soul to
his latest years. This was one of his greatest charms.
No one, I believe, has ever heard the old man's complaint
of changing times, from his lips. He never sighed for
the "good old times," although he had lived through
changes in institutions and opinions, of systems and lan-
guage, of men, manners, and even of dress, as no other
prominent man. He received the living traditions of the
great circumnavigator, Cook, through Forster, Cook's
companion, and lived to gather facts for his Cosmos from
the latest reports of the geological surveys of our States;
he lived when Voltaire died, and must have grown up
with many French ideas of his school floating around
him, for Humboldt was a nobleman whose family lived
within the atmosphere of the Berlin court; and he lived
to witness the great revolution in literature as well in
Germany as in France and England; he lived when
Rousseau died (the same year when Voltaire deceased,)
and must have remembered, from personal observation,
that homage which even monarchs paid (at a distance,
it is true,) to the Contrât Social, and he outlived by
some weeks de Tocqueville. He lived through the pe-
riod of the American Revolution; was a contemporary
of Washington and Adams, and a friend of Jefferson.--
He lived through the French Revolution and the age of
the classic orators of Britain. He lived through the
Napoleon era and the resuscitation of Prussia and of all
Germany. He studied under Werner, with whom min-
eralogy begins, and knew Houy. He knew Laplace,
survived Arago and Gauss, and worked with Enke. He
lived with Kant, and knew Schelling and Hegel. He
knew Goethe and read Heine. He read Gibbon's De-
cline as a work of a living author, and perused Niebuhr,
and later still Prescott and Ranke. He grew up in the
Prussian monarchy according to the type of Frederick
the Great, and with the fresh reminiscences of the seven
year's war, and left it changed in army, school, govern-
ment--in everything. He saw the beginning of the In-
stitute of France, and lived to be considered by the as-
sociates as one of the most brilliant ornaments at its most
brilliant period. He lived through the periods which
distinctly mark the science of chemistry, from Lavoisier
to the Roses and Liebig. He lived through the whole
period of growing popular sentiments and habits. He
wore the lace and ruffle of the last century, and the more
practical dress of our times. Yet, no one, I repeat, ever
heard him regretfully long for what had passed. I have
heard him speak with warmth of noble things and men
that he had known, but never with gloomy despair of the
present or the future.
There are men here around me of honored names in
those sciences which Humboldt cultivated more especial-
ly as his own. I hope they will indicate to us how he
infused a new spirit into them--how he immeasurably
extended them--how he added discoveries and original
conceptions; but I, though allowed to worship these
sciences in the peristyle only, and not as a consecrated
priest, crave permission to say a few words even on this
topic.
Some fifteen years ago Humboldt presided over the
annual meeting of Naturalists, then held at Berlin. In
his opening speech he chiefly discoursed on the merits
of Linnæus. He knew of Linnæus as Herodotus knew
of Salamis and Thermopylæ; for the life of the great
Swede over-lapped by some ten years that of Humboldt,
and all he there said of Linné seems to me to apply to
himself with far greater force and on an enlarged scale.
In that speech, too, I remember, he quoted his friend
Schiller. Humboldt was, in a marked manner, of a poetic
temperament. I do not believe that without it he would
have been able to receive those living impressions of na-
ture, and to combine what was singly received in those
vivid descriptions, and in language so true and transpa-
rent that they surprise the visitor of the scenes as, gene-
ration after generation, they are examined. He had
that constructive imagination--I do not speak now of
inventive fancy--without which no man can be great in
any branch, whether it belong to nature or to history, to
statesmanship or Watt's ingenuity.
But yesterday an officer of our navy, whose profession
has made him well acquainted with South America, by
sea and land, and with the Andes--one of the Monu-
ments of our Illustrious Man--told me that he knew of
no descriptions, or rather characteristics so true to living
reality as Humboldt's Views of Nature, which he had
perused and enjoyed on the spot.
The power of collocation and shrewdness of connec-
tion, the knowledge of detail, and the absence of a desire
to perceive things according to a system, the thirst for
the knowledge of the life of Nature, and the constant
wish to make all of us share in the treasures of his know-
ledge--his lucid style, which may establish his Cosmos
as a German classic--these seem to me to characterize
Humboldt in his Studies of Nature, besides all that
which he has done as a professional naturalist.
Humboldt's name and life may be termed with strict
propriety of language, international. He read and spoke
English and Italian; he spoke and wrote Spanish with
ease and correctness, and French almost as well as Ger-
man; he lived for entire periods of many years in Paris,
and counted many French among his best friends, yet
not at the expense of patriotism. In that very speech
at Berlin, which has been mentioned, he dwells with
pleasure on the penetrating effect which the German
mind has excersised on all the physical sciences, no less
than in the mental branches.
Humboldt was a dweller in kingly palaces--a courtier
if you choose, and a son of a courtier, without a taint of
servile flattery or submission. He was rather the
honored guest of royalty. He loved liberty, and consid-
ered it a necessary element of our civilization. He was
a sincere friend, of substantial, institutional freedom.00
His mind often traveled to this country, and that he
loved America (sometimes with sadness,) is sufficiently
shown, were it not otherwise well known, by the singular
love which the Americans bore him. To me that little
piece of news was inexpressibly touching, which simply
informed us that our Minister in Berlin, with the Amer-
icans now present at that city--a cluster of mourners
from afar--formed part of his funeral procession--the
only foreign nation thus represented.
In his simplicity and genial warmth he did what many
a bold man would have hesitated to do. I was present,
as a young and distant listener, when at Rome, immedi-
ately after the Congress of Verona, the King of Prussia,
Humboldt and Niebuhr conversed on the affairs of the
day, and when the last mentioned spoke in no flattering
terms of the political views and antecedents of Arago,
who, it is well known, was a very advanced Republican
of the Gallican school, and uncompromising French
Democrat. Frederick William III simply abhorred Re-
publicanism, yet when Niebuhr had finished, Humboldt
said, with a sweetness which I vividly remember: "Still
this monster is the dearest friend I have in France."
Humboldt had all his brother's views of the necessity
of the highest University education, and of the widest
possible popular education, and he gave impulse to many
a scientific, historical or ethnological expedition, fitted
out even by foreign Governments, for he was considered
the counselor of all.
But I cannot dwell here any longer on his versatility
and manifold aptitude. It is proved by the literature
of almost every branch. If we read Barth on Central
Africa, we find Humboldt; if we read Say's Political
Economy, we find his name; if we study the History of
the Nineteenth Century |
EN